The subject matter herein relates generally to grounding structures in connector assemblies.
Some electrical systems utilize electrical connectors to interconnect two circuit boards, such as a motherboard and daughtercard. Signal loss and/or signal degradation is a problem in known electrical systems. For example, cross talk results from an electromagnetic coupling of the fields surrounding an active conductor or differential pair of conductors and an adjacent conductor or differential pair of conductors. The strength of the coupling generally depends on the separation between the conductors, thus, cross talk may be significant when the electrical connectors are placed in close proximity to each other.
Moreover, as speed and performance demands increase, known electrical connectors are proving to be insufficient. Additionally, there is a desire to increase the density of electrical connectors to increase throughput of the electrical system, without an appreciable increase in size of the electrical connectors, and in some cases, with a decrease in size of the electrical connectors. Such increase in density and/or reduction in size causes further strains on performance.
In order to address performance, some known systems utilize shielding to reduce interference between the contacts of the electrical connectors. However, the shielding utilized in known systems is not without disadvantages. For instance, in some known systems, the electrical connectors include contact modules that provide 360° shielding around the signal contacts entirely through the electrical connector. The shielding is provided by a metal or metalized holder that holds dielectric frames, which in turn hold the signal contacts. Such connectors include many parts and the metal or metalized holders may be expensive to manufacture.
A need remains for an electrical system having improved shielding to meet particular performance demands.